can we help
+44(0)1983 296060
+1 757-788-8872
tell me moreJoin a rally

Menu

Firefly - Whistling along again!



The mystery of the kettle whistle has been solved; somehow the errant domestic appliance landed in an open packet of unpopular biscuits (if they were popular we would have found it immediately) during one of the more dramatic downwind rolls. It was only when Peter was desperately looking for a snack at 0300 that its resting place was found (he thought at first it was another type of snack!). Yesterday's log implicated David in the crime, he has now been proved blameless and apologies made to him for any slur on his character!

8 days on we are still enjoying fresh fruit and veg; the large bunch of local green bananas purchased from the Santa Cruz, Galapagos market for 1$ are now yellow and delicious. The fruit basket is far from empty and we are planning to have pineapple for lunch. Looking further ahead we hope the water melon will hold out for another week.

Some readers may recall that we ran a SSB radio net on the last leg; this was less than successful but it appears our reception and transmissions are better than many on this leg - last time we were very heeled over and was probably the cause of our weaker signal. We were asked to stand in for one of the leading boats scheduled to run the net but now out of range to many in the fleet. Paul's net this morning went very well contacting most of the fleet - not bad for a radio set bought on Ebay! The positions called in show us in a good position (based on how Firefly is performing against the larger and theoretically faster boats) and also wind conditions. We are South of the leading boats but still in contact with them and in close company with Ghost and Tulasi although we don't currently have visual contact.

The Aquair generator was deployed several days ago when the wind stabilised and increased. The generator unit looks like a large car alternator and is attached to the pulpit (the stainless steel rails at the back of the boat). It is connected to the batteries and is driven by a spinning impeller towed 30 metres behind the boat. The reduction of speed is not noticeable and is probably about 0.2 knots which is a very good trade for the power it provides. We last ran the engine to charge the batteries over 2 days ago and are currently nearly fully charged despite being on the SSB (which is power hungry) for an hour or so earlier today.

Still no fish caught! The line is long and the lure is much further back that the generator impeller - however, the churning it creates could be the reason for the lack of success.

Paul, David and Peter

Previous | Next